You are allowed to enjoy this…

Like most fans, I’ve been looking forward to the next Brian Eno “vocal” album for quite a while. “Another Day on Earth” is his first proper vocal album since “Nerve Net” from 1992 and it kicks off with the sublime “This”. Now I love this kind of Eno treatment, a good percussion track, a thoughtful lyric and a guitar solo that comes from the Heavens. The only problem is that “This” could have easily come from “Wrong Way Up” and sounds so much like the co-writes he’s done for U2 and James. I still like the track loads, but it sounds dated and, frankly, old. And that’s the problem with the rest of the album.
Whereas “Nerve Net” had me asked “What was that?” when I first heard it, this CD leaves me asking “Why?”. It is an exercise in familiarity and nostalgia, with dancing percussion, ethereal vocals and those ambient keyboard sounds that are synonymous with Eno. “And Then So Clear” features a throbbing, pulse-like bass drum and Eno burbling along with a distorted vocal. It’s pleasant enough. And that’s the problem…it’s all too pleasant. After this track, “A Long Way Down” sounds like an off-cut from the U2/Eno cross-over record “Passengers” but isn’t as nearly as creative or interesting.
More old ground is visited with “Going Unconcious” which sounds like it could have been lifted directly from the “Drawn from Life” album. It’s suitably ambient and transporting, but it evaporates just before you get to your destination. The rest of the tracks plod along, going at the same pace, it’s like one giant vanilla ice-cream of sound. Thick, comforting, but ultimately unrewarding. Where are the sprinkles? Where’s the flake? Where’s the nuts and juice?
“Just Another Day” manages to lift the pace somewhat and is probably the second best song from the album. It’s got a beat. Yes, it actually has a noticeable drum loop. Hurrah! You could call it the title track of the album because the lyric is “It’s just another day on Earth”. More Eno recycling happens with “Under”, a song that was meant to be on the “My Squelchy Life” album that got transmogrified into “Nerve Net”. This track has been around since 1992 and appears on the Eno Vocal Box Set from that time. I find it’s inclusion here a bit strange. Yes, it is a great song, but surely this is a bonus track, not a fully-fledged album track that every Eno fan is familiar with? Oh well, that’s Eno’s decision, not mine. The last track “Bone Bomb” is probably the most interesting track of the album in terms of texture, but it relies on sampled vocals that instantly remind you of Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman” – but that makes it sound dated. If you can get over the 1980s sound, it is an intereting little number and owes a lot to the experimental, cut-up vocal sound Eno used on “Nerve Net”.
“Another Day on Earth” is a curate’s egg. Parts of it feel right, but much of it feels wrong for me. In parts, it is too slow, too familiar, too repetitive. Most of the album sounds incredibly dated and this album proves that Eno works best when he has other musicians to spark off from. There’s nothing like that here. There are no moments of jaw-dropping beauty or heart-stopping excitement. It’s almost like Eno tried to make an ambient album with vocals. It’s certainly good listening to it in the bath, but standing it against his other releases it is an empty shell compared to “Nerve Net” which really made me question modern music when it came out or “Another Green World” which is a work of genius.
I guess the problem is that I expected too much. But saying that, at least it got me listening to “Drawn From Life”, which is a much more fulfilling work in my opinion. Nice try, Brian, but this CD lacks the quirky imagination of your previous works. Must do better…